Critical Thinking On Criminal Law

According to Paulk (2011), the victim of Joran van der Sloot was Natalee Holloway who disappeared in May 2005 after she was last seen by two other Aruban men. Another victim of van der Sloot was Stephany Flores Ramirez, who disappeared five years later, and the body was discovered in the hotel room of van der Sloot in Lima, Peru. The poor victim’s body was found to be violently abused and battered body. The circumstances surrounding the brutal death and robbery of the two victims, Ramirez and Holloway remain unresolved. The charges of murder against Van Der Sloot for the disappearance and death of Holloway were dropped. However, but he was charged for the death of Ramirez who was brutally killed (Paulk, 2011).
Van der Sloot began his descent into deviant behavior when he killed his first victim, Natalee Holloway. He developed his sexual deviant behavior after it was shown that he killed the victim after having sexual intercourse with her in a fishermen’s hut near the beach shore. After he was able to get away with the murder of Holloway, his second victim Ramirez suffered the same fate. The only difference is that the body of Ramirez was recovered. Van der Sloot was born of wealthy parents and he knew that he can get away with all his misbehaviours. In addition, his father, who was also a respected lawyer exercised power and influence by manipulating the justice system to prevent his son from going to prison.
Hunter, et al. (2009, p.141) explains that sexual deviance includes the presence of three personality factors in adolescent males who had engaged in sexual and non-sexual delinquency and they are hostile masculinity, egotistical-antagonistic masculinity, and psychosocial deficits. In the case of van der Sloot, it shows that he possesses the characteristics of egotistical-antagonistic masculinity and psychosocial deficits (Hunter, et al. (2009, p.141). He was egotistic in the sense that he thought that his family’s wealth and power gave him the privilege to commit wrongdoings. He was confident that he can away with murder because he has the money and power to control the justice system since his father was a judge himself. Van der Sloot is suffering for an antisocial personality disorder because he killed his victims, who were young girls to show them that he is in full control over them. Due to his personality disorder, he has the tendency to dominate and control his victims by seeing them beg for his mercy, and in return gives him personal satisfaction by feeling powerful and invincible.
One of the theories associated with the antisocial personality disorder is having the extreme stimulation-seeking behavior or conduct that is found in psychopaths. The rationale behind this theory is based on two assumptions. According to Forrest (1994), the first assumption that can best describe psychopaths is the characteristic of primary abnormality that results from a physiological reaction which is an outcome of a elevated degree of optimal stimulation. The second assumption associated with psychopaths is that they want to achieve a higher optimal level of stimulation in order to reach a higher degree of motivation (Forrest, 1994).
Based on the characteristics van der Sloot, medical intervention may have helped him overcome and control his sexual deviance at his young age. It appears that he committed his first murder when he was still a teen-ager. His parents should have sought medical intervention to cure the psychological behavior of their son who was sexually deviant.
One rationale that can be suggested to society in order to change the attitudes towards sexual behavior is by acknowledging the violent criminals who are on a killing spree suffer from mental illness, and it is not the individual choice of the criminal. A habitual and notorious criminal may be born of criminal parents themselves, and was passed during birth. The mental illness of a person is inherited based on his genes that can be found in the child’s parents. The sexual deviant behavior may also be caused by social factors that can influence the behavior of a person.

References:

Forrest, G. G. (1994). Chemical Dependency and Anti-Social Personality Disorder. New York: Routledge.
Hunter, J., Figueredo, A., & Malamuth, N. (2010). Developmental pathways into social and sexual deviance. Journal of Family Violence, 25(2), 141-148. 
Paulk, J. S. (2011). Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery. Library Journal,136(17), 50-51.